User blog comment:MegaGyarados/PokéPolls - Episode 2 - Nominations - Hardest Gym Leader/@comment-32358261-20180210232136

For me the first gym was hard because of one thing. My team was all weak to or had no way to handle electric types.

It’s kinda embarrassing to say how many times I lost to him.

Froakie couldn’t do anything

Pidgey was even worse

Abra only had teleport

zigzagoon was low level

Fletching wasn’t much help either

Pikachu has base 90 speed which is faster than most pokemon you had at the time. I think froakie was fastest at 72 (somewhere around there). Unless I had quick attack and pikachu didn’t use quick attack was usually my main chance